1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of insurance claims. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for providing context-sensitive help and an interactive search mechanism at the various processing steps of an insurance claims processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Insurance companies have been processing and settling claims associated with bodily injury for a long time. The task of evaluating, analyzing or estimating the amount of damage associated with one or more types of bodily injuries, especially trauma-induced bodily injuries, can be very complex. Complexity in the evaluation process often arises out of the fact that concurrent expertise in legal, medical and insurance fields is often required to arrive at a particular decision involving a bodily injury claim.
Several factors can affect the estimated amount of the claim associated with a bodily injury. Every accident is different and every injury is unique. Arriving at a customized evaluation of a bodily injury claim, which is unique for a specific accident, injury, etc. is desirable. Applying across-the-board standards may tend to result in an inequitable solution for one or more parties involved. External environmental factors, such as the experience level of a claims adjuster, record of accomplishment of the legal professionals, post-injury quality of life for the injured party, etc., all can affect the valuation of a claim.
During the past several years, many insurance companies have been using computer-based and knowledge-based claim-processing systems to process, evaluate, analyze and estimate thousands of claims in a fair and consistent manner. A knowledge-based claim-processing system includes an expert system which utilizes and builds a knowledge base to assist the user in decision making. It may allow the insurance companies to define new rules and/or use previously defined rules, in real-time. The business rules are generally written by industry experts to evaluate legal, medical, insurance conditions before arriving at a valuation of a claim.
In knowledge-based systems, to estimate a claim for bodily injury, the user may enter inputs on a display screen and step through a series of displays or screens to complete the data input process. The knowledge-based claim processing system may then utilize the user-provided inputs to generate a claim report.
The complexity of analyzing or estimating the amount of damage associated with one or more types of bodily injuries may create difficulties to a user of the knowledge-based systems. Help information in the form of documents such as manuals and guidebooks may be provided by the knowledge-based systems to help the user in completing the data input process. The help information may be provided in printed form or, in some systems, in electronic form. The volume and complexity of the supplied help information may make it difficult for the user to locate a portion or portions of the information pertinent to a current step or screen that the user is working on in the data input process.
It may therefore be desirable to develop an electronic, on-line help system to provide context-sensitive help for the current step or screen that the user is working on in a knowledge-computer based system. It may also be desirable to provide a method for the user to interactively search the on-line help system for one or more terms relevant to the processing of a current claim.